Stanford silent, ex-adviser says, as empire fell

HOUSTON, Texas – A former Stanford financial adviser testified Thursday that he urged company chief R. Allen Stanford to do something in early 2009 to restore confidence in its investments.
“The silence was deafening,” said Jason Green, who worked for Stanford Financial Group in Baton Rouge, La.
Green was one of two government witnesses to testify in the fourth day of the government’s case against Stanford, accused on 14 counts of perpetrating a $7.2 billion fraud on certificate of deposit investors.
Stanford, 61, insists he isn’t to blame – that former Baldwyn resident James M. Davis, his chief financial officer, was the culprit.
The trial, in SFG’s former headquarters hometown, is expected to continue six or eight weeks.
Earlier in the day, former Stanford advertising hire Leo Mejia apparently gave contradictory testimony about his involvement in publicity for Stanford’s then-Montserrat based Guardian Bank, which later was named Stanford International Bank Ltd.
Davis was SIBL’s controller before becoming the worldwide company’s CFO.
CDs were sold through SIBL, based on the Caribbean island of Antigua.
Mejia alleged that he saw Stanford making changes on numbers for an annual report, but then failed to recognize the bank in photos shown to him by Stanford’s defense attorneys.
Reporters using Twitter wrote that when Mejia was excused as a witness, he fairly “flew” out of the courtroom.
Green told the 15-member jury that by February 2009 Stanford put a halt to withdrawals after the money going out was larger than what was coming in.
He’d spent Christmas in wine country with PGA golfer VJ Singh, Green said.
When Stanford needed money in 2008, the ex-adviser said Stanford told him, “I’ll go to the Libyans – they love me.”
In fact, Stanford went to Libya and secured a multi-million investment just months before his financial empire began to crumble.
patsy.brumfield@journalinc.com